Fantasy Football Today - 2020 RANKINGS! Let's Start the Debates (and talk XFL) (02/10 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

We've released our 2020 rankings, so it's time for some good old fashioned rankings debates! First, did we watch more of The Oscars or the XFL over the weekend (1:00) and what were our takeaways from the XFL? Then we've got a fun Allen Robinson stat (3:05) and some big news items (7:35) on Cam Newton, Todd Gurley, Dwayne Haskins, Russell Wilson and more ... QB rankings (17:00) as we get into Heath ranking Kyler Murray 10th, Dave being the high guy on Drew Brees, and Ben Roethlisberger vs. Ryan Fitzpatrick. RB rankings (28:40) as Heath is the low guy on the sophomore RBs and we debate Melvin Gordon vs. James Conner ... WR rankings (40:00) with Heath having DeAndre Hopkins ranked 7th and Dave having D.J. Moore outside his Top 12. Is Brandin Cooks on anyone's radar? Finally TE rankings (54:45) as we discuss Zach Ertz, Tyler Higbee, Jared Cook and the sophomore TEs. And we finish the show with some more XFL talk (1:01:30) including who stood out from a Fantasy perspective ... Email us at [e-mail] 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @YardsPerGretch, @BenSchragg For more fantasy football coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/football/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Big ranking show here on Fantasy Football Today. What's up, everybody? Welcome back. Hope you had a great weekend. It's Monday, and we were supposed to have Dave, Jamie, and Heath on to talk about their rankings because, you know, they all do rankings, and it would have been fun to have them debate, but Jamie's sick.

So best wishes to Jamie Eisenberg. Oh, he's got the XFL flu. Too much XFL. The good thing about the XFL flu. Too much XFL. The good thing about the XFL flu is that it's gone in 25 seconds. Yeah, right. Short play clock for the XFL. Although, Dave, a little deceiving because they don't start the play clock immediately. It's more like a 30-second play clock.

Wouldn't you agree? It's pretty close. It's not bad, but it's definitely like a fast-paced game. I enjoyed the XFL. I know we'll talk about it a little bit later but i i i found myself enjoying it okay so first question for dave and heath what did you watch more of the xfl or the oscars i didn't watch one second of the oscars uh oscars yeah i watched I watched more Oscars.

Definitely if you count the red carpet. See, it's weird because it was on in the room I was in, but I was reading. I definitely, though, I think still saw more Oscars than I did XFL. I thought the XFL was fine. I didn't say anything negative about the XFL. No, no. I didn't say you did. I didn't say you did.

Relax. It's all good. I didn't see any negative about the XFL. No, no. I didn't say you did. I didn't say you did. Relax. It's all good. I didn't see any double forward passes, though. Did they happen? I think I saw one. One on Saturday. I did not see any. Where it's like a shovel pass, and then there was a pass after that.

And if not, then I'm making it up, and that's what they should do. But no, there was nothing great. There was almost one. There could have been one where I think it was Tom who was was like wait the the snap went over jordan tom who's head he's the quarterback for st louis okay he goes and cat he retrieves the ball it's 20 yards downfield he still throws it to somebody downfield if the man had caught the ball he would have been hit for a 10-yard loss and said fortunately he dropped the ball but if he had caught it and then thrown it again that would have been a two-pass play.

But that was an incomplete pass that was almost a two-pass play. It was like a great play for them because he dropped the pass that went over from the snap. You know what I mean. It would have been a nightmare of a play for St. Louis. But they went on to win. The Battle Hawks. Kind of thought Al Pacino got robbed.

Thought he should have won. But other than that, it was a good weekend. A lot of people got robbed. Thought he should have won. But other than that, it was a good weekend. A lot of people got robbed. And if you haven't seen Adam Sandler's speech from the film awards that were the night before the Oscars,

I don't even know, like the Independent something or whatever, that is worth watching. Just YouTube or Google that. Okay, so we'll talk about the XFL, some of the cool things

in the XFL if you missed it. The access you get to the players, to the coaches, to the replay booth. We'll talk a little bit about that, some of the top performers. But it's a ranking show, plus we do have some notes to get to, notes about Cam Newton, Todd Gurley, Dwayne Haskins, Russell Wilson, Derek Henry, Marlon Mack. But here's your stat of the day because I know you guys like Allen Robinson. Heath, you like him the most.

You have him 10th in PPR. Jamie and Dave have him 16th. Allen Robinson, nobody cares about Taylor Gabriel. But here are Robinson splits. Eight games with Taylor Gabriel this year. 43 catches. 459 yards. One touchdown on 70 targets.

Without Gabriel, including one game that Gabriel left early with an injury. 55 catches, 12 more catches, 688 yards. That's more than 200 more yards and six of his seven touchdowns on 84 targets. Al Robinson was garbage with Gabriel. He was really, really good without him. Your thoughts, Heath, since you're the high guy on him. I don't know that Gabriel is going to be on the team i think he's a potential cap casualty and i think that these splits are probably more reflective of a little bit of randomness like he was on pace for what

80 catches with gabriel i would expect that put him a little bit over a thousand yards i don't think he only scored one touchdown with gabriel for any real reason so i i i don't think he only scored one touchdown with Gabriel for any real reason. So I don't take much out of it. The Bears will save $4.5 million if they cut Gabriel. They'll save more if they keep him this year and then cut him next year. But he could always restructure and then he's there. You know, Anthony Miller benefited from Taylor Gabriel not playing as well. So we'll see what happens. But Robinson still looks like a guy that's going to get a lot of targets

and a lot of catches. Entering a contract here, if the Bears were really in cap trouble, they'd have to cut or restructure him, but they're not. So Allen Robinson will be there. Well, Dave, you've got him 16th. Guys, you have ahead of him that Heath does not. Amari Cooper, Julian Edelman, Keenan Allen, Adam Thielen. Care to discuss?

No, I like those guys better. I think they've got a little more upside than Robinson. I think they're a little more fun than Robinson. Yeah, definitely with Keenan Allen, I could see that depending on what his quarterback situation is. I know Robinson probably isn't going to be very good, but it's probably not going to be worse than it was last year. I think there's a legitimate chance right now that Ke keenan allen situation is going to be worse than it was in terms of quarterback next year if it's justin herbert

for the chargers and tyrod tyrod's under contract i know but you know justin her i think the most likely what if it okay they draft a rookie and start tyrod that's possible uh tyrod's been there before what if it's nick foals in chicago throwing passes to alan robinson you dig oh um i don't think he'll be worse than traviski was a couple of jag ex jaguars playing in chicago that's the secret to us and then like edelman's 117 years old and we don't know who his quarterback and he's banged up he got banged up last year and i'm assuming brady's back in new england Thielen's 30 and was outperformed by digs at last year so I don't know I don't know I get it like I feel like Allen Robinson is like a really safe receiver someone's going to take him to be a number two guy maybe a number one guy if you

spend your first three picks on non-wide receivers and just a safe dude who you can pencil in for 75 catches thousand yards six touchdowns. He's not exciting. I don't think he'll finish as a top-12 receiver, but he's not a bad guy either. So I get it. I just don't – I'm not showing him the type of love that you are because I don't think he's got the same type of upside as other receivers have. Now, you know I'm going to have to dispute what you just said

about Adam Thielen, Heath. He was not outperformed by Stephon Diggs when he was healthy. He was not. Sure, yeah. If you just take out all the partial games he was not outperformed by Stefan Diggs when he was healthy. He was not. Sure. If you just take out all the partial games and take out the games after the injury was suffered and just look at the games before he got hurt at any point.

But everybody's playing banged up. Yeah, but there's a difference between playing banged up and not playing at all. But like the games that he played when he came back from injury, Diggs was better than him. For sure. But when he was healthy. They left so early. Yeah, six games at the beginning of the year, 15.3 PPR points per game.

And I don't think Diggs got there, and he played almost all year. I don't think he averaged quite that much. I'll double check right now using my really fancy spreadsheet. And 13.5 PPR points over the course of the season. Yeah, he definitely was better in those six games, but he played more games after that, Thielen. And he was not 15 fantasy points per game after that. Okay, so we'll have more ranking disputes a little bit later on in the show.

Let's do some news and notes, guys. So Carolina GM Marty Herney kind of avoided questions about Cam Newton. He will come up in the rankings today. You guys have him 13th for Jamie, 18th for Dave, and 12th for Heath. Two years ago, he was a top eight quarterback. He's sixth and 4.8 and six point per passing touchdown. He's on a per game basis, and that was playing much of the season with a shoulder injury. He was my favorite quarterback to draft

in 2019 and obviously preseason injury rushed for negative one yards in two games and uh that was it for him but yeah the Panthers don't seem completely committed to him what what's your read on that situation it tells me that they're waiting to see just how healthy Cam Newton is before they make a determination on him. Cap wise, it makes sense because he's getting under $20 million this year to play quarterback, but is he healthy? Can he do what this offense is going to be?

What is this offense going to be? So I think until the Panthers get a few more questions answered about Cam's health, they're not ready to say, they're not ready to be as conclusive as Cam was during Super Bowl week. Yeah, I don't think there's much chance that Cam Newton will actually be my number 12 quarterback when we get to August. If he's 100% healthy in July, then he probably moves up to be a top 7 or 8 guy. And if he's not 100% by the time we get to July, then he's probably not in the top 20. He's going to be somewhere in between those. If he's not 100% by the time we get to July, then he's probably not in the top 20. He's going to be somewhere in between those.

If he's not 100% by the time we get to July, he might not be on the Panthers. There's a chance that they could cut him loose, and I think they save a bunch of cash if they do that. I'm not 100% sure, but this is a wait-and-see situation, and so because of that, I've got him ranked way lower. I wouldn't draft him right now. Todd Gurley's future with the Rams is somewhat in question, according to Ian

Rappaport. I think he said all options are on the table. Do you think Todd Gurley is the lead running back for the Rams next year? Yep. Yeah, I do. He's a really hard guy to move, kind of like David Johnson. And still probably better than David Johnson. Well, at least David Johnson's knees are healthy.

We don't have to worry about that like we had to with Todd. And Gurley, he wasn't consistently good in terms of the way that he played. I know his fantasy totals knees are healthy we don't have to worry about that like we had to with todd and girly like he wasn't consistently good in terms of the way that he played i know his fantasy totals were great he scored a ton of touchdowns but i don't think he ran very well but he was better than carry after carry after carry basis yeah well because he scored 300 touchdowns i think he was better i think he was better running the football than johnson do you but he was not near as good catching the football i don't think both were really that good last year and that's why there's talk about them getting traded but i can't see a team giving up something for todd girley knowing that his contract is bloated his

knees aren't right i think the rams are stuck with him and my guess is that the rams are going to use them similarly to how they used them last year which isn't bad for fantasy if he can hold up Redskins see Trent Williams or left tackle as part of their plans for 2020 according to Ian Rappaport but they seem a little lukewarm on Dwayne Haskins I don't know it's hard to read between the lines they want him to step up that's that's for sure they're not just handing him anything he had he made seven starts he played nine games seven touchdowns seven interceptions in those nine games. Showed some signs of life in his last two games. 22 fantasy points against the Eagles, 17 fantasy points against the Giants,

but only 15 pass attempts. And actually, Haskins only had one game out of seven starts with more than 29 pass attempts, so they were a heavy-run team. What do you think about Dwayne Haskins and Terry McLaurin? it's going to be in the rankings discussion because I know Heath you're super high on McLaurin I think Haskins will be better like we should expect just like with every rookie quarterback they'll be better than they were there the year before unless they were good and then it'll probably just be good but yeah I think I think he'll be better but not good do you know why they're uh they're they're lukewarm i'm using air quotes on

duane haskins i think is because they've got the number two pick and they want to try and build a market for it to try and get another team to jump up there and get to a tago vailoa so i would imagine anything they say that suggests that they're all in with Dwayne Haskins lowers the value of that pick is too is somebody more likely to give out more to trade for two than Chase Young absolutely he's a quarterback yeah but we don't know if he can even play this year we're assuming that you know he's getting a cat scan I think today that he gets the results and then to see just how much progress he makes and I'm assuming that he's going to be okay. So as long as he's all right,

then tool will be number two or number three in the draft. Listen, if the Redskins, if they think that Tua is healthy, they should absolutely draft. I agree. Absolutely. And then you flip haskins for whatever you can get,

but this isn't true for all quarterbacks. You just think that Tua is that good. Because we're not saying every Division I quarterback should be drafted ahead of all non-quarterbacks. No. I don't think they should do this with Herbert. I'm not sure. No. Yeah. And it's with the qualifier if he's healthy.

Because if there's any questions about his health, they can't do it. Yeah. You just go back to a year ago and the way people were talking about Tua and the type of prospect he was, he was going to almost certainly be the number one pick. And I think it's just the injury that's holding people back. And I don't think...

We know enough about the process of how they selected Dwayne Haskins. There was a big split in the building. Not everybody was sold on Dwayne Haskins. So if you're sold on Tua, I don they selected Dwayne Haskins. There was a big split in the building. Not everybody was sold on Dwayne Haskins. So if you're sold on Tua, I don't care that you have Haskins. You do what the Cardinals did, and you take Kyler Murray when you have Josh Rosen. You trade Josh Rosen. I think you absolutely do that.

And then you let the Giants take Chase Young. The one problem is the one guy in the building for Washington that was sold on Haskins is the one that might matter the most, and that's the owner. We'll see. Maybe he can be convinced otherwise. I'm pretty sure he could sell a bunch of Tago Vailoa jerseys and tickets, and that's a problem in Washington. So I'm telling you, if he's healthy, I think you're right, Adam. I think Washington has to take a very long look at him, if not take him at two. Russell Wilson wants to be more up-tempo. Ooh, that'll be fun, huh?

We've been hearing about this for, I feel like, two weeks now. That's one of the minor adjustments I've made to my projections since I finished them. And I did increase their pass rate just a little bit because it's so low compared to the rest of the league. Any type of indication that they might throw the ball and play a little faster i'm gonna it's a possibility excited by that it could happen oh i wish it would they should do it they've got two great receivers uh they can address their offensive line and make it better their run game is a little

suspect right now i would say we don't know how chris carson's going to come back from his latest injury build around that stud and and that would give him potential to finish as like the number one or two quarterback in fantasy if he had more opportunities all right and then i'll just run run through the rest of the notes here derrick henry says he's going to be seeking at minimum ezekiel elliott's contract six years 90 million franchise jaguar is going to play two games in London for the Jaguars. Two games. Wow, that's their home stadium in Wembley.

Sammy Watkins says he will play in 2020, and the Colts are working on a contract extension with Marlon Mack. That's according to the Indianapolis Star. According to me, you should be listening to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast, five episodes per week starting this week with position previews beginning, I believe, on Wednesday. We'll do relief pitcher and catcher this week, and then we'll get to first base and the rest during next week

and the following week. It takes a while to do baseball position previews, but we'll get them done. And, yeah, just check out Fantasy Baseball Today. Check out our newsletter. Sign up right now. Go to cbssports.com slash newsletter. Stay up to date with fantasy football content all offseason long. Your news of the day, your podcast content, your editorial pieces,

prospect profiles, rankings, and more. That's at cbssports.com slash newsletter. Here we go to the rankings. Okay, quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, and Heath. Huge controversy. You have Will Lutz as your number one kicker and Justin Tucker as your number four kicker. Dave and Jamie have Tucker number one debate. They don't kick field goals as often in Baltimore anymore because they have one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. So I factored that in in lowering Justin Tucker.

If they had Joe Flacco again, I think he'd probably be the best kicker again. What else from your kicker rankings would you like to debate, Heath? What's wrong? Adam? I was asking Heath what else from his kicker rankings he'd like to debate.

There's a lot of similarities between my February kicker rankings and the 2019 order of finish of kickers. I'm always looking for consistency from kickers, and I think we got some pretty good consistency from Tucker.

So I took him. I think he's pretty good. He's a good kicker. I'm not going to fight you over Will. I don't think we're actually supposed to be debating that. Thank you. Thank you. That's exactly what this was. It was a shtick. Heath hates kickers, so I went to his kicker rankings. Okay, let's get back to the

basics here. Kyler Murray, top five for Dave and Jamie. Jamie has him fifth. Dave has him fourth. Heath has him tenth. I'll start with you, uh Kyler Murray QB4 the other thing about Justin Tucker is no I'm just sorry uh look I think we've we're starting to approach quarterbacks a little bit differently now we're seeing them as dual threat type players or just cannon arm superstars that can put up huge numbers in any given week. We want the upside. We want to try and get quarterbacks on our fantasy team that can get close to 30 points per game, maybe even well over that in the case of Lamar Jackson. And so someone

in every draft, and I might be that someone in a lot of our drafts, will reach a little bit for Kyler Murray, assuming that he continues to run the football, that Arizona's offensive line is improved, that the receiving core is better than it was last year. They throw downfield a little bit more. I think Murray can do those things. And I would expect him to take a big jump forward in terms of how he plays in the NFL. And I'm buying into that upside knowing that it's going to cost me a pick higher than I might normally want to get Kyler Murray at, but I can also get a quarterback late in the draft to back him up in case he doesn't come through.

So to me, Kyler Murray has a chance to be the next Lamar Jackson. He's got potential for maybe not 1,200 yards, but 600, 700 yards, plenty of touchdowns, plenty of passing yards. He's a really good passer and i i see him as being one of those top five fantasy quarterbacks at the end of 2020 i don't like being the low guy on kyler murray i would like to have him ranked higher so i don't want to argue too much that like i am right and having kyler murray 10th so what i will argue is if kyler murray had a better receiving core and threw the ball downfield just a little bit more and made a

huge leap as a passer he might be Dak Prescott and so I just I can't rank Kyler over Dak or Russell Wilson because they are guys that can do all of the things that Kyler can do they already have better situations around them and they've already proven to be probably better than Kyler Murray will ever be so like those are the two, I could understand Kyler as like where he is in our consensus is where I would like to rank him. I've not found a way to manipulate the numbers to get him to that point. And so he's still down at number 10. It's going to take a huge improvement for him to make that type of leap. And I get it with what you're saying about he could be what Dak Prescott was here's the question for you is Dak who he was in 2019 can he do that again and we've talked about this and maybe you don't

have to answer now it's something that you marinate on for a day or two but is Dak Prescott capable of matching the numbers he had last year or is he taking a step backward that opens the door for Kyler to step ahead of him and that that's what I'm thinking. I think he's definitely taking a step backwards. I took 10% off across the board. It's just that he was number two last year. If he takes a step backward, he could still be top five pretty easily. Well, that's 4,500 yards. 28 passing touchdowns.

Right, so you'd knock three off of that. So 25. No, 28 is what I have in projection. Oh, okay. So he had, what, 30 last year, 31, something like that? Right. Yeah, I think Kyler can get there. I'm excited about him.

I think that he – it is – I'm assuming that that offensive line gets better and that Cliff Kingsbury goes back to the lab this offseason and finds ways to make Kyler more effective. That's the thing that I really – because, like, we came into last year with really the only hope was Kyler Murray's going to be really exciting. Cliff Kingsbury's offense is going to take the NFL by storm. By basically any measure we have, Cliff Kingsbury was pretty mediocre in his first year as an offensive coach.

You know what? He had to change his offense. And usually when we see those guys come in with these new concepts, the first year is when they have success and then everybody catches up to them. Yeah. He changed his style midway through the year. i don't know whether to view kingsbury as a positive or a negative i think it's positive that he was able to change his style and just make his offense um he he made the offense more about the strengths of who he had on the team and he tried

he didn't try and force it to be his way all season long. He realized, okay, I've got to change some things to try and stay competitive in some of these games, and it worked out. And maybe he gravitates back to what he did in college now that he's got a better team around him. And I wouldn't take Tyler Murray until round seven in a PPR draft. That would be the absolute earliest I would take him, I think, or anything earlier than that, just too soon.

Well, one thing that he does that Dak Prescott doesn't do, he'll run for more yards. I mean, he ran for 544 yards as a rookie. Dak Prescott, I don't think he's ever been above 350. 357 is Dak Prescott's career high. So there is that. And then I think Murray was a little unlucky. If you look in the red zone, he had the 7th most red zone pass attempts,

23rd most red zone passing touchdowns, eighth most pass attempts inside the 10, 12th most touchdowns inside the 10. And then the rushing, he had five carries inside the – he had three carries inside the five-yard line. He did not score on any of them. Josh Allen had five carries inside the five-yard line. He scored on all five of them.

Lamar Jackson had five carries inside the five-yard line. He scored on all five of them. Lamar Jackson had five carries inside the five. He scored on three of them. So I remember just thinking, gosh, Kyler Murray has been very unlucky this year, so maybe there's just some positive touchdown movement. I think he was absolutely a little bit unlucky when it comes to passing touchdowns. I mean, he is a quarterback who had four rushing touchdowns, and it's not like he ran as much as Lamar Jackson. I don't think you should really expect him to score more than four times

on the ground next year. By the way, let me reset the rankings here, because if you're just listening to the podcast, I encourage you to do one of two things. Either go to youtube.com slash fantasyfootballtoday and watch the episode, and you'll see the rankings come up. See your hair, too, Adam. Oh, I have such bedhead. It's horrible.

I couldn't fix it. I'm sorry. Or go to our website. Just go to cbssports.com slash fantasy slash football and click on the rankings, and they are now updated, and you can follow along. And when you look at the quarterback rankings, it's Mahomes and Jackson, one, two, and Watson, three, for Jamie, Dave, and Heath. Then you've got Russell Wilson and Dak Prescott in the top six,

and Kyler Murray in the top six for Dave and Jamie, top five, in fact, but 10 for Heath. So we talked about him. How about Drew Brees? He's 10th for Jamie. Drew Brees is 8th for Dave and 14th for Heath. And he was pretty much a – I think he was the number three quarterback on a per-game basis if you take out the Rams game

where he left really early with an injury. Just his healthy games. Number three quarterback. I understand not ranking him there, but Heath, 14th for you. You're the low guy on him. It's Dave and Jamie Edmund, the top ten. And I think kind of what Dave said about newton we we may not know for another three weeks if true breeze is going to play football this year so if i was drafting right

now i couldn't draft him like my starting quarterback um i i do think they are more likely to be a little bit more run heavy and he'll be a low-end starter if he plays. He was number two in consistency last year. He scored more fantasy points than any other quarterback in the final five weeks of the season. There's an asterisk next to that because Lamar Jackson didn't play in week 17, and Drew Brees did. Seven games with 25-plus fantasy points out of 11 that he played. I think that's pretty good.

And I'm working under the assumption that he'll be back in New Orleans, that the Saints will add another piece to their passing game, that their offensive line will be okay, and that Drew Brees will end up being one of a handful of quarterbacks that you can wait on on draft day. You'll see Kyler Murray go ahead of him. You'll see Josh Allen go ahead of Drew Brees. I don't know if that's necessarily the way it should be, but I think Drew Brees will be an unbelievable

value pick in fantasy in 2020. Let's wrap up quarterback by talking about a couple of older guys. Ben Roethlisberger, not like Drew Brees. We just got done with Drew Brees, who's the second oldest quarterback in the league right now. Go ahead. Ben Roethlisberger and Ryan Fitzpatrick.

Heath, you have them back-to-back. You have Fitzpatrick one spot ahead of Roethlisberger, and you're the low guy on Roethlisberger. Dave and Jamie have them about 15th, 16th for Jamie, 15th for Dave. You've got Ben 22nd. Fitzpatrick, Dave, not even a thought for you, like 31st for you, whereas Jamie and Heath have Fitzpatrick 21st. And he was in his last 11 games after Josh Rosen stopped playing.

They were just like, we're done with Josh Rosen. Fitzpatrick was the number four quarterback in fantasy. Pretty crazy. So, Dave, you have Roethlisberger ahead of Fitzpatrick. You have Fitzpatrick basically off your radar, 31st overall. Because I'm assuming that the that the dolphins add another young quarterback it'll probably be somebody who doesn't start right away whether it's tago vailoa or herbert or whatever they end up doing maybe they trade for duane askance who knows but i think that

fitzpatrick won't be a reliable fantasy starter for your team i don't think any of us are drafting him in a one quarterback league if he's ranked 21st or later so i'm just taking the approach that he won't play much if at all and um until that changes you're going to see him way low in my rankings despite the fact that he was pretty fun to have on your fantasy team last year yeah i think the most likely outcome because i could definitely see him not being on your fantasy roster in a two quarterback league in the fantasy playoffs but i do think it's likely that he starts eight plus games to start the year because i don't think there's another young quarterback to bring in that's ready to play right now um like tua seems to be the best pairing with fitzpatrick we'll see if somebody jumps over them to make that move but

that would make the most sense and that would probably mean that we're seeing 10 to 12 weeks from Fitzpatrick so I'm more concerned I just need to see something positive about Ben Roethlisberger like tell me that he's doing some sort of exercise and throwing a tennis ball throwing things and like getting along with people and definitely playing football because like that was a rough look at the end of the year that he had going on and oh you mean like his the way he physically looks yes he looked like grizzly adams did have a beard um and he's way up there in age and yeah it's funny hasn't thrown for a long time and so i like i i hope that i get something over this summer and we're just like yeah ben looks like the old big ben and he's out there running around throwing we're probably not

gonna run but throwing footballs and and then i'll i'll move them up and i'm i'm expecting what you're looking for that he's all healed up and ready to go and at the helm of this offense that should still be um past centric i know they weren't last year that's because they didn't have a good quarterback but i've got questions about their run game i don't have questions about their offensive line and i think their receivers i think deontay johnson is someone who could take a nice step forward this year right alongside some dude named juju smith schuster i don't know if you remember him but he used to be really good for fantasy he was all right and rothlisberger likes throwing to him so like just as an was all right and rothlisberger likes throwing to

him so like just as an example i've got rothlisberger three spots ahead of cam and both of them coming back from an injury both of them definitely in the back half of their careers i mean the sun is setting on both of them but i think there's a better chance rothlisberger ends up starting and playing 16 games in cam yeah i i I, I don't think we don't know that, but right now I'm more worried about Ben. As soon as I see Ben do something, I'll be fine. Moving on now to running backs here in the running back rankings.

And obviously, you know, the names that are up top and I'm going to try to talk about players that we haven't talked that much about during the off season. Cause we've, we've certainly debated a lot about really the teams that were playing in the playoffs. So try to find some

some new storylines here heath basically does not like the year two running backs i think that is what's what jumps out we'll get to that in a moment compared to dave and jamie he's lower on mile sanders josh jacobs and devin singletary and by a lot so heath i don't know you've got some complex can we get to that now no No, I disagree with the by a lot. The biggest range here is between 11 and 21, 11 and 18, 14 and 22. That's not a huge range at running back. No. The difference between number 14 and number 22 is not a big difference.

It's eight running backs. They're both number two running backs. What do you mean all three? That's ridiculous. It's eight running backs. They're both number two running backs. What do you mean all three? That's ridiculous. That's 100% true. No, there's a big range between number two running backs. Someone that you rank 12th compared to 21st. That is a big difference.

No? The thing that stood out to me when I read over your notes, Adam, is that I don't have Philip Lindsay ranked ahead of Sanders, Jacobs, or Singletary, and Heath does. And that's what I want to hear, because I think Lindsay is okay. I think he's going to be the lead back for Denver. I think he'll be all right, but I don't see a path for him to be a top 10 fantasy running back like I do certainly for Jacobs quite quite honestly I see it for Singletary too

and I want to see it for Sanders but I just know what Philadelphia does with their running back so I might soften it and say more of like a top 12-ish type of guy for Sanders which is why I've got him where I've got him but I'm curious to where your mind's at with Lindsey versus the second year running backs because I would guess that as it stands right now, all three of these guys will get picked ahead of Lindsey just because they're second-year backs who finished 2019 strong. They were very similar in their rookie year to what Phillip Lindsey was in his rookie year

when he was the number 13 running back in fantasy. And he did it with a lot of extreme efficiency and that's what we saw from singletary and sanders and i'm generally going to regress that efficiency and i brought like both of those guys i had to make some manual adjustments because they got more touches as the season went on but i still don't feel 100 confident that miles sanders is just going to be like 300 touch feature guy he could be be. It's possible. I get it. I get it.

I'm more open to that possibility than really I am with Singletary right now because they've talked about how they've got to go get another running back. But what really has changed for Lindsey over the last two weeks, he's another one of the adjustments I've made since I started, is Pat Shermer. Because Pat Shermer has, generally speaking, had a feature back. And one of the first things he talked about in his press conference was how he thinks philip lindsey can catch more balls so as of right now and this could change over the summer i'm expecting philip lindsey's going to have a little little bigger

piece of the pie and catch more passes with schirmer well what about pedigree though like because miles sanders i mean i don't understand how you have Kareem Hunt one spot ahead of Miles Sanders. That just blows my mind. But Miles Sanders, five-star recruit, early round pick. We know running backs get pushed down. You listen to Ben Gretsch talk about Miles Sanders. He knows what's up. Phil Blitze was an undrafted free agent. So at some point, that doesn't matter. But maybe it still does. And I just feel like Sanders is on the track to stardom here. And by the way, his last eight games, I believe, including the playoffs without Jordan Howard, he was on pace for 296 touches, 234 carries, 62 catches,

1,526 total yards, and he was on pace to be like the number seven running back basically in fantasy based on those games. We saw, we've talked about this. There were multiple running backs, including Damian Williams, who saw Aaron Jones, a much bigger increase in their share of the touches as it got closer to crunch time at the end of the season. Sanders did that, just like those guys, but he also did that after Jordan Howard got hurt. If we get to even May and there's not like another significant back added to this team,

then I'm going to up his touches. I've got open touches sitting there just expecting. And again, I think, Adam, you've accepted because of those eight games that Doug Peterson's history doesn't matter anymore. It was only because he didn't have a running back as good as Miles Sanders. And Miles Sanders is definitely going to be that guy now. I will have to see the offseason happen before I'm going to accept that. Yeah, I basically do feel that way. I basically feel like I could feel that way by May. But let's get through free agency let's get through the draft let's see who's on the

roster with him and then maybe they might they could just bring jordan howard back it's very i think boston scott's got a roster spot locked up right we know sanders has a rock i'm projecting sanders and scott what if there's what if there's a it could be howard as a bench guy or somebody else is a bench guy. It just depends on what Jordan Howard has. If they bring Jordan Howard back, I'm not going to give Miles Sanders 300 touches. I don't think you can. I think you're right.

That's fair. I agree. All right, so what about Josh Jacobs, Devin Singletary? What do you have against them? I don't have anything against Devin Singletary other than it's very similar situation to miles sanders he just wasn't as good um so i like i do expect he's going to share jacobs just i wish he could get the touch of it this concerns that i had about jacobs coming into last year and i i didn't dislike him but i didn't have him as high quite as everybody else

was can he hold up to a full workload because he never did it in college, and will he get the work in the passing game? Did you get those questions? I know you got the second question. I don't think I got either of those questions really answered, but the fact that they just gave $5 million guaranteed to Jalen Richard tells me they think they know the answer to the number two question. He had six games with at least 20 carries. I don't think they were afraid to give him the bribe.

But he didn't hold up. He did wear down as the season finished up, and the lack of catches is something that does make an impact in PPR leagues. And I think you're right. Jalen Rashard re-signing definitely hurts that upside for Josh Jacobs. But at the same time, I would imagine that they're going to try and expand his role a little bit more. Maybe he gets more catches instead of carries, which would help his PPR profile. And he still shares that role a little bit more. Maybe he gets more catches instead of carries,

which would help his PPR profile. And he still shares that role a little bit with Richard. I think it could go either way. They could say, you know, the fact that he had the multiple injuries at the end of last year has nothing to do with the fact that we gave him more work than he's ever had in his life, and we're going to do it again. Or they could say, this guy had never had that much work,

and we gave it to him, and he got hurt. Well, it's true i maybe they are worried about that and that's why richard was an easy sign for them but i also think richard came cheap for them i don't think he's going to break their bank and they liked his style of play he has one of the top 20 running back contracts on a per year basis yeah but that's because a lot of running backs aren't paid very well the ones at the top are paid really really well but the ones closer to 20th i mean it's kind of chump change compared to the rest of the salary cap yeah a lot of these guys are still on their rookie deal i mean it's a young

position obviously but uh we for what it's worth we asked josh jacobs about the workload and he seemed he said that he felt like the injuries were his fault. He could have avoided them. I pressed him on it, so it wasn't the workload, the way I recall the interview going. And he said no, but I don't know what that means. You take that for what it's worth. I'm not sure any running back would admit that the workload, if that was the case, really got to him.

But Dave, what do you have to say? I mean, do you look at Sanders, both of you, do you at sanders jacobs and singletary as potential stars yeah uh you know and just huge breakout opportunities i mean that's that's the long and the short of it i think that they have potential to impact their teams as versatile potentially three down running backs and it's not to say they're going to play as much or get as many touches as Christian McCaffrey got. I don't think any of them are in line for 112 catches. But I think all three of them have a floor of 30 catches. And I think in the case of Singletary, that can get as high as 60.

So it's just a matter of them doing a lot with the work that they get. I think the path for Singletary to score more touchdowns is there if Frank Gore is not there or if Frank Gore does come back and is in some sort of reduced role where he's like strictly a bench guy don't use in case of emergency or like if Devin Singletary has to go tie his shoe he goes off the field ties to Frank Gore's in for a play and then they switch back Sanders obviously the workload matters we're talking about that who's he going to share with and Jacobs I think Jacobs is a stud. He had a lot of touches last year.

He was 262. It's the most of his career. It was more than he had at three years at Alabama. I still think the Raiders are going to let him plunder quite a bit. I don't think that they're freaking out about him getting hurt late in the year, and I would expect him to have a chance to finish as a top 10 running back i i am the most concerned about the the six singletary and the 30 catch floor and 60 catch opportunity he caught 29 last year and he was one of the worst backs in the nfl on a per target basis and there were questions about how good he would be in the passing game

coming into the year so i like maybe it will be if if they bring back frank gore and that's his competition he's gonna go way up my board but if they bring in Frank Gore and that's his competition, he's going to go way up my board. But if they bring in somebody that can catch even a little bit, I'll be a little worried. Let's talk about Melvin Gordon versus James Conner. Dave, you have Gordon 15th and Conner 23rd. Heath, you have him almost flipped.

Conner 13th and Gordon 25th. So Dave likes Gordon as a number two running back, 15th, and Heath has him 25th, whereas Dave has Connor 23rd and Heath has Connor 13th. Dave, go. Gordon versus Connor. I think Melvin Gordon has a chance to be a lead back for another team. He'll be a free agent. I don't think he'll sign a crazy rich contract,

but he'll get something nice where he can be the first guy up for a team. Miami could be an option, for example, where he goes to the Dolphins. Miami's going to use two running backs. That's staple of how chan gailey's offense is run but it's got to be a running back who can catch the ball out of the backfield that's another staple of what chan looks for and melvin gordon is an instant ad there it's just an example i think he can hold up i think there are legit questions about whether james connor can hold up you talk about josh jacobs and whether or not can. Conner was on and off the field all season long, and I would imagine that the Steelers address the running back position again this offseason.

I think they like what they have in Snell. I don't know if they like what they have in Jalen Samuels anymore. It wouldn't surprise me if they added another running back and they went with the three-headed monster. I know we're not used to that from Pittsburgh, but I think that they could be nervous about james connor being their their workhorse i think it's a really bad idea if they had another running back i think james connor is really good and he had he was hurt last year and yes he had a missed three games the year before i may have him just a little bit too high i don't know what to think of melvin gordon i don't know

how excited i'm going to be if melvin Gordon goes to the Dolphins. It's a terrible situation with an awful offensive line. I at least know, at this point expect, James Conner is going to be the lead back in Pittsburgh, and I do expect he'll have a good offensive line in front of him. Let's go over to wide receiver. Here we go. Wide receiver rankings. Everybody, take a look at him on

cbssports.com slash fantasy slash football and you're like oh deandre hopkins he's probably gonna be number two right well he's number three for jamie he's number two for dave he's number seven in ppr for heath cummings heath would you like me to give you the Will Fuller splits? Yeah, give us the Will Fuller splits, Adam. Okay. So Will Fuller, the games that he left with an injury, I considered games he missed. So if that's the case, he played nine games, he missed six. DeAndre Hopkins, his pace with a healthy Will Fuller,

was 101 catches, 1,200 yards, seven touchdowns on 142 targets. Without Will Fuller, 125 catches. It's 24 more. About 90 more yards, 1,296. Eight touchdowns instead of seven, but 187 targets. He was on pace for 45 more targets without Fuller than he was with Fuller. We kind of saw some similar splits in 2018 as well.

But it is still surprising to see Hopkins 7th in your rankings, Heath. Yeah, and my bigger concern was with Fuller and Kenny Stills on the team, they really changed the way they used DeAndre Hopkins last year. He was used more like a Michael Thomas, closer to the line of scrimmage. His average depth of target dropped about 20%, and his yards per target last year

were lower than any year in his career except for the Brock Osweiler year. So if the targets are going to come down just a little bit from where they have historically been, and he's not going to be really all that elite on an efficiency basis because they're using them so close to the line of scrimmage. I just don't know that he has quite the same upside. Now Fuller could get hurt week one and miss the entire season and he could get

180 targets, but I think it might take 170, 180 targets for him to be a top two or three guy. I think the bigger issue is what do they do about their run game? This is another landing spot for Melvin Gordon, potentially where he can just come in and they throw some money at him and he impacts their offense. And all of a sudden they've got a run game and a running back who can

reliably catch the ball out of the backfield. He can end up doing a duo with Duke. That sounded kind of cool, except it won't be cool if you draft Melvin Gordon in fantasy. And that could take some targets away from, from deandre hopkins but i love his consistency he's finished as a top five receiver i think definitely each of the last two years i'm not sure where he went in 2017 but he's also been no he was not what hopkins he was not well in non-ppr i'm talking PPR in PPR I think he was 5

it was not that good of a year for him and top 6 in consistency and you're going to hear from me probably every podcast between now and August you're not going to find a lot of players who can give you good consistency week in and week out in fantasy I want to get those guys

and I consider them one of the elite receivers in the game but you can find a lot of them in the first elite receivers in the game but you can find a lot of them the first round like that's almost all of them oh yeah and so that's the debate here is if we're taking Hopkins in the first round or the second round um and I think but I almost feel like he's he's going to be like and I'm sorry to cut you off like a top 17 or 18 pick agreed no matter what like he's going to be right in that turn of one two where people if they want a receiver they're going to look at him if Devonta Adams is gone and they they like Hopkins better than Julio they're going to take him it's it's a matter of personal preference here so everyone has michael thomas number one jamie davin heath deandre

hopkins is three for jamie two for dave seven for heath uh davante adams is top three julio jones is top four chris godwin's top six tyree kill is top six mike evans is top three. Julio Jones is top four. Chris Godwin's top six. Tyree Kill is top six. Mike Evans is top seven. So the top seven wide receivers are all the same in a different order, except you got Hopkins. Hopkins is the real outlier there. Now you go a little farther than that, and

DJ Moore is eight for Jamie and Heath and 14th for Dave. So Dave still has Kup, Galladay, Juju, Cooper, Edelman, Keenan Allen ahead of DJ Moore. And again, like I said, Moore is eighth for Jamie and Heath. So Dave, why are you not putting DJ Moore in your top 10? It makes me nervous that he doesn't score a lot of touchdowns. I am not 100% certain that he's going to continue to get fed the types of targets that he got fed last year.

And going back to the consistency thing, he finished top 10 in wide receiver consistency, still didn't have, what was my number, 16 PPR points or more in half of his games? No, he didn't. The second half of the year, is that the DJ Moore that we're getting? If so, is Cam Newton or whoever the quarterback is going to be in carolina going to fire at him as often as kyle allen and will greer did down the stretch is this offense in carolina going to cater to him that way and is curtis samuel going to be bad again so there's questions about dj more that i have even in a ppr that makes me a little bit nervous of putting him

in my top 10 yeah he's a first round wide receiver that was extremely efficient as a 21 year old rookie and then dominant as a 22 year old second year player i don't think his quarterback play can be worse than it was last year kyle allen was one of the worst deep ball passers in the nfl will greer was worse than kyle allen so assuming they don't bring in somebody even worse than those two i expect d expect DJ Moore is going to take another step forward in year three. And he might even be a top five wide receiver this year. How many games does he have next year with eight plus catches? That's a question I have for you.

Six. All right. He had four last year. So that would mean taking a step forward, being a bigger part of the offense. Is he still going to – are his touchdowns going to perk up? Because he hasn't had a lot of those. It would also mean just playing 16 games.

He didn't play week 16, and he only played like five snaps in week 15. So it's a guy who put up that season in 14 games basically. Yeah, and in his last seven games, he was on pace for 1,600 yards on 171 targets. Only two targets inside the 10-yard line. But that really is kind of – that could be a very fluky stat. I'll tell you what I think could be a problem for DJ Moore is the division. Atlanta's defense got a lot better, and they started doing well against number ones. New Orleans has Lattimore.

Now, he crushed New Orleans. Lattimore did not play that game. Tampa Bay, remember I said it so many times in January, they were so good against number one wide receivers down the stretch. They just became arguably the best. It was crazy. Julio Jones, DeAndre Hopkins, the best of the best. They were shutting them down.

So it's just something to consider there for DJ Moore. He might have that sort of Devante Adams like schedule where it could limit him a little bit, but ranking him eighth I think is not like ranking first. He was in the slot 13% last year.

He's pretty good in the slot. I wonder if they just move him inside a little bit against those teams. I wish they move him inside more against everybody. Make use of his skill set because he can do that. I think the reason why he was probably outside more was because they get it outside more, DJ, more. Yeah, yeah. Is because they were more comfortable with other players playing the slot. I like him.

I like him a lot. I hate that I'm the low guy on DJ more. It probably means I'm not going to get him in any of the leagues that we play together. No, because Ben Gretsch is going to have him like third. Yeah. I mean, he is a PPR model. I've got him even lower than that non-PPR. He's 20th for me in non.

I'm even more nervous about him in that format than I would be in PPR. Okay, let's talk about some other young receivers. Terry McLaurin and Cortland Sutton. And he really likes these guys has them both in the top 12. He's got a McLaurin 12th and Sutton 11th Dave and Jamie, not quite. Jamie's got McLaurin 30th. Dave has him 22nd.

And it's kind of the opposite for Sutton. Jamie has Sutton 21st and Dave has Cortland Sutton 31st. Can you look up Adam, where these guys finished last year on a per game basis? I've got it. Because I feel like maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like they were both top 20 guys on a per game basis. No, McLaurin wasn't.

McLaurin was 25th in non PPR and 30th in PPR. And he only had 58 catches in 14 games. I was surprised by that. Sutton probably was. He finished as the number 17. and he only had 58 catches in 14 games. I was surprised by that. Sutton probably was. He finished as the number 17. He's close. 17 in non-PPR, 18 in PPR, and he played 16 games.

So I would imagine he's right around 20th. Right. Sutton and McLaurin were almost dead even in PPR fantasy points per game. McLaurin had 13.3. Sutton had 13.4. Oh, all right. So maybe not. I'll tell you right now where they finished. Go ahead, make your case, and then I'll tell you where Sutton finished. Well, I mean, McLaurin just had, what, 919 yards in 14 games, and a lot of it was with Case Keenum early in the year, but he had two very good games at the end of the year with Dwayne Haskins. In fact, his last three were all pretty good with Haskins.

I think Haskins made improvements as a rookie passer. I expect him to make more improvements this year. And I don't really have questions as far as target share go for Terry McLaurin or Cortland Sutton. I expect them to dominate targets on their own teams. I don't have a hard time. I would have a hard time debating you on what you just said. I do think Sutton kind of maxed out at the types of targets that he had last year. 16 games, 124 targets. I'm always looking for that number. 120 targets, that's the number

that you want to look for from a wide receiver, especially once you get past the first two rounds when you're looking for wide outs. If you can find a guy that you think can get 120 targets draft them because i think that they've got potential to come through and sutton did just that and he's he told me he's trying to work on his game and take it to the next level but i think schirmer's arrival is going to be much better for noah fant than it will be for courtland sutton which is why i think if you're drafting Sutton, at best he's doing what he did last year. And that's 13.3 PPR fantasy, 13.4 rather. Whatever, they're about the same.

The way that he can improve that target number without taking a bigger share of the pie is that they are not one of the slowest teams in the NFL this year. I mean, with Rich Scandrella, and we've seen it a lot with rookie play callers, they take longer to call plays. They don't play quite as quick. They ran 954 offensive plays.

But do we know Pat Shermer is a speedster when it comes to calling plays, especially with a second-year quarterback? I'm not sure that's going to be the case. I think they can be a little bit faster, and that'll help. Maybe he gets to 130 targets that way. But I'm not ready to put Sutton on the pedestal in a PPR format when he only had 72 catches, had a 58% catch rate. I'd love to see those numbers go up.

I'm not sure that it can. That sounds a lot like Kenny Galladay. It does, but I think Galladay scores more touchdowns and has more big plays thrown his way. Okay, so I think Sutton was more like 30th on a per-game basis. He was 28th in PPR, and I think he was about 30th in non-PPR. So surprising. I didn't realize that.

Yeah, and McLaurin. They were pretty similar in both formats. McLaurin a little bit better in non-PPR, Sutton a little bit better in PPR. Give me your favorite late-round pick. There's no way, by the way, there's no way to do a full breakdown of rankings, so I just try to pick some highlights here. I encourage everyone to look at the rankings. Give me your favorite late-round pick because I know the rankings are different here.

Jamison Crowder, Christian Kirk, Brandon Cooks. Crowder, Kirk, Cooks. Dave, how would you rank them? I have them. Kirk, 36th. Crowder, 45th. And Cooks, I've got 44th in PPR. I've got him one spot ahead of Crowder.

Kirk would be my favorite of the three. I don't even think I'm the high guy on Christian Kirk amongst my peers here at CBS. No, but I think that if you like Kyler Murray, I think Christian Kirk is going to play. He made a bunch of mistakes last year, really could improve his efficiency, but it's kind of in that high target volume role for Arizona, and I think he can continue to keep it there.

Does he have potential for 1,000 yards and 80 catches? I'm going to say no. But I think as number three receivers go, I think he's among the better ones you could draft. That's only in PPR. Non-PPR, it's a different story. Yeah, again, I think it's similar to what I said. I expect Kyler Murray to improve a little bit as a passer,

and I expect Christian Kirk in his third year to improve as a wide receiver and like 80 catches in a thousand yards he had 68 and 713 games last year and like dave said didn't play particularly well he was better as a rookie so i do think if he plays 16 games that's that's a pretty decent benchmark to aim for well um the the 16 game pace from last year was 84 catches, but only 873 yards. Yeah. Let's get Christian Kirk a little more vertical, huh? Well, and he was there. They just couldn't block anybody, so they couldn't send anybody.

You know what? That's a good point. And maybe that's something that helps Christian Kirk out. I expect one of the three rookie receivers that Arizona drafted to step in to a bigger role. It could be Isabella, who just has speed for days, and he would really add a great dimension to that offense. It's just a matter of whether or not he's ready. They still have Hakeem Butler on the roster.

That's a big body on the outside. And Larry Fitzgerald is back for another year. So there's a lot of targets to go around. It makes me nervous to trust Christian Kirk as a top 24 guy right now. But nobody really seems to have much faith in brandon cooks who was very consistent three years in a row i think top 15 wide receiver at a macro level he was very consistent but on a per game basis not at all right i mean one week great one week bad and you just don't know like tough matchup he's great and then the next week it's a cupcake matchup and he's

got three targets i'm not comfortable at all with where i have brandon cooks i've been trying to find ways to add more targets to his projection because it seems ridiculous to put that much weight in the last year i think i've got him up to like 51st now in ppr and i'll try to get him higher but it does seem like at this point he's behind robert woods and cooper cup and we know that the running backs will be a little involved and the tight ends will be possibly more heavily involved than they have been in the past that makes it tough to find enough targets for him to be good i think what you would have to expect is that one of cup or woods or higby is just not going to be good at all or they just pass like so well they threw 680 passes last year, and he got 70 targets.

Right. Okay, let's go to the tight ends here, and we can talk about Tyler Higbee if we want, but everybody's got the same top eight at tight end in some order, and that top eight would be Kelsey 1, Kittle 2. On average, Ertz 3, Waller four, Andrews five, Hooper six, Henry and Ingram.

Those are your top eight. But within that, those rankings, you've got a low projection sort of, I guess, for Zach Ertz, because Heath, you got him fifth and he's third for Jamie and Dave.

And that means you have Darren Waller, Mark Andrews ahead of Ertz. Yeah. We talked about Ertz quite a bit in the projection last week. The main thing I would say is I don't think they throw quite as many passes to tight ends as they did last year. I believe it was 240 or something, the second most in the last 20 years. But I do think that Dallas Goddard's share of the tight end targets

remains at least as high as it was. So that would mean that Ertz is going to see his targets decline from what they were this year. And we kind of saw it until all the wide receivers got hurt. He was a real disappointment. But he made it pretty clear what he's capable of doing. He gave everybody some big reminders of what he is capable of being in that offense. And they're adding receivers.

They're going to add at least two this offseason. And even with additional players on the field, it would have to be somebody like Amari Cooper going to Philadelphia to really shake me on Zach Ertz. I still think he's going to be a red zone beast. I still think he's got potential to affect the game the same way that Kelsey and Kittle can affect the game. And I still think he's going to be a red zone beast. I still think he's got potential to affect the game the same way that Kelsey and Kittle can affect the game. And I still think he's going to be a good volume target, maybe not where he was two years ago or toward the end of last year, but still get good volume. The other side to this is how comfortable can we be with Darren Waller and Mark Andrews and whoever else can make that jump ahead of Zach Ertz. For now, I think it's kind of easy to rank Zach Ertz third and then just say, all right, look, he's given you so much. You know what to expect from him.

He's pretty reliable. And I appreciate that you take the hard way out on that and say, no, I think he's going to take a step back, and you're going with Waller, and you're going with Andrews ahead of him. I'm just not sure that it's warranted quite yet because i think oakland will add guys that will take targets away from waller and i think baltimore will add somebody that can take targets away from mark andrews yeah especially oakland because like we saw andrews production go down when renfro became more involved and obviously they had antonio brown

they were expecting to have antonio brown so this entire season was played without what was supposed to be their number one wide receiver. That helped Waller. I'll have more concern for Waller if it's a quarterback change as opposed to more weapons being added. Because as long as he's got Derek Carr as his quarterback, it doesn't matter who you have running down the field 20 yards away. Derek Carr's not going to see them.

Yeah, but we saw what happened when Renfro came on. It really hurt Darren Waller. You know, it's kind of the same thing. He did it. But again, that was a narrative. It was like a four-game stretch where Hunter Renfro really seemed to affect Darren Waller's production.

But Waller finished with a very good game when Hunter Renfro was on the field, right? Weeks 9 through 12 was when Renfro kind of got going. And Renfro had five more catches than Waller. He had three more targets and one more touchdown. Waller had about 18 more yards.

Their production was very similar. It was a bad four-game stretch. It was 13 catches, 211 yards, no touchdowns on 20 targets in four games for Darren Waller. That's like an 800-yard pace for a tight end in a bad stretch. But it's five targets per game. That's, you know, not so good. All right, look, it is a small sample size. Ertz averaged 7.25 targets per game with Alshon Jeffrey,

and he averaged 11 targets per game without Alshon Jeffrey or in games which Jeffrey left early. You all have Noah Fant over TJ Hawkinson. Give me a reason why. Pat Schirmer. That's definitely the best reason why. The second best reason is because we saw quite a bit of Hawkinson and he was minimized in the offense. And I think Detroit's going to make Galladay their their main receiver

on offense we'll see what they have at number two whether they hang on to Marvin Jones or not I think Hawkinson could end up being the third best guy there I don't know how many games he's going to have next year with five or six targets you all have Tyler Higbee ahead of Jared Cook what are you thinking I don't know I'm thinking that it's going to be a young, aggressive tight end in just as good of a passing offense as the one that Cook is in who might get lost from time to time. But Cook got lost from time to time. I'm going younger here.

That's really what it comes down to. And the bet is that Higby continues to get good volume. I don't think he'll be quite where he was at the end of last season. But he's another one of these big mismatched guys that the Rams kind of stumbled into, whereas the Saints brought in Jared Cook to be that mismatched guy, and they forgot about him for the first third of the year. Yeah, like Jared Cook at age 32 averaged 16 yards per reception and scored nine touchdowns on 65 targets for the year.

That's four targets per game. You're saying he can't keep that up? I don't think we should expect Jared Cook to keep that up. And the year before he was awesome because he got 101 targets, but I don't think there's room for 101 targets in the Saints offense. Do you agree that Higby will have a hard time keeping up his pace from the end of last year too? Oh, there's no chance. Which is why neither of these guys who did some incredible things last year

are not top five types of tight ends. I've got Evan Ingram out of both of them. And Ingram did almost bupkis last year, but that's, I think he bounces back. And I think Jason Garrett and his track record with how he's used his tight ends. When he was a play caller,

you can read about that on CBS sports.com right now. I think that there's room for Ingram to be better than both of them next year and he's one of the value picks that i think you can get at tight end last eight games of the season for jared cook that's when drew breeze came back he was the number one tight end and non-ppr number two in ppr but in a probably unsustainable way 76 targets in in those eight games, 19.2 yards per catch. Whoa, he did not have 76 targets in those eight games. He was on pace for 76 targets. Oh, he had 38 in those eight games.

Okay. Yeah, 38 targets in those eight games. Thank you. He was on pace for 76 targets, which would have been 12th most among tight ends. So you can't expect a guy to be the number one or two tight end with the 12th most targets. Just, yeah, I understand why he went with Higigby over cook i just wanted to be a little dramatic there all right speaking of dramatic dave what were your takeaways from the xfl this is the xfl yeah uh i enjoyed it i i ended up watching parts of every game, and I think I watched one game from beginning to end and was excited.

To me, it felt like Arena League football, outdoors, larger field, better quality players. And not that these guys, you know, there's a reason why they're in the XFL and not in the NFL, but I think there's a lot of good players. That good's too strong. A lot of adequate players playing against other adequate players, and it made for a fun game.

Look, I think the design of the game didn't necessarily play out on the scoreboard. I thought that the game is designed to have a lot of closer matchups, the fast pace of the game, the fact that you can score nine points on one possession. We didn't quite see it play out that way. The coaches were pretty conservative in that regard, but it's a passing league more so than the NFL. And it was fun. I had fun with it.

I played some DFS with it. I, I lost 10 bucks at the end of the, at the end of the weekend. I also bet on the XFL. I might have a problem, but I won money on that. So ultimately, it was a positive weekend.

And I don't know if any of these guys are coming to a National Football League team near you. But for now, it's fun. It's a great replacement for the NFL in the dead of the year when there's no other football being played. And it's made fantasy fun too. Ben Gretch, who's been on our podcast before, has done a piece on the five biggest takeaways on the XFL. And I think it's worth reading if you are going to watch the XFL or play DFS XFL or regular fantasy XFL. My five biggest takeaways.

I only have two. Aaron Murray is really bad. He had a terrible. And you know what? Tampa Bay, like Trestman for whatever. It's almost like he treated that game as a preseason game. They were one of three teams that were 50-50 run pass or more in favor of the run. My second takeaway is Christine Michaels' stat line.

Oh, my gosh he had seven carries people were taking him with a first round pick i took him second overall yeah seven carries zero yards one target one catch negative one yard so you had more yards than christian michael cameron artist pain his counterpart also former NFL star, two carries. You're using star a little loosely there. Lance Dunbar led that team in rushing yards with 27. These are just fun things. This is not a rushing league.

You're not going to have – running backs are going to be kind of like tight ends. Don't tell Matt Jones that. Why? 21 carries for 85 yards. I think that was the most yards any running back had on the ground xfl week one but my my first round pick was uh was devion smith of tampa bay and i was encouraged that he got 16 carries in a game that they lost 23 to 3 so that was you know okay we're all learning here what i thought was really fascinating about this was like, you are trying to be a fantasy analyst on a league that you know absolutely nothing about.

Imagine that you have never seen, that nobody has ever seen an NFL game. And all the assumptions you would make and how wrong you would be. You know, it's just, it's a real challenge. And it's just a different perspective on the game. I love the fact that you hear from the replay official how he's talking to the head referee and figuring out the close plays and if it's a catch, if it's not. Interviewing players right during the game on the sideline, that was pretty cool. The kickoff was interesting with the way they line up.

I didn't see anything too crazy. I mean, it felt like normal football to me. One fantasy player, Austin Prohl. I believe Austin was his first name. He's Ricky's son. He had a big game. Ricky's? That's Ricky's kid.

Ricky's kid. Yeah. He had a huge game. He had 10 targets, which is great. But he had like a long, fluky touchdown. Yep. So we'll see if that... Like, he was like the 60th pick in our draft.

Yeah. So I feel like he's a sell-high. I was hoping he wasn't drafted. feel like he's a sell-high, but if he had 10 targets... Yeah, me too. Well, how about Nelson Spruce with 15 targets? How about PJ Walker? PJ Walker was the cheat code in DFS this past weekend.

Yeah, the quarterback big game. Oh, he plays for Houston. He could be Walker, Texas Ranger. I like Cardinal Jones, too. I think he's going to be good. It's my new XFL fantasy team name. And he went into camp not even as a starter. You remember Connor Cook?

Walker, Texas Danger. Cardell Jones, the D.C. quarterback, I think is going to have a really good year. I agree. He had nine carries. He threw two touchdowns. I think they're going to be solid. All right.

Thank you for listening. Listen, I'm not on the rest of the week, so Dave Heath, you have to uphold this promise you're about to make. We haven't read emails in a long time. They were supposed to be on the show today. Didn't get time for them. You have to read emails on the next show and the one after that, okay? You want to do a mailbag show? We can do a mailbag show, but emails have to be read and they will be read.

Why not? You up for that, Heath? I'm not going to be on the next show. Oh, come on. Okay. It doesn't have to be the next show. We can do the mailbag as part of the, when we do the Dynasty coverage. We'll get it in. We'll get it in. Fantasyfootball at CBSi.com.

Alright, good. Alright, thanks for listening, everybody. For Dave, for Heath, I'm Adam. Jamie, feel better. We'll talk to you on Tuesday. Na, na, na, na, na, na. Na.